Tag Archives: neighborhood watch

Solved break-ins due to neighbors with cameras

With the crime rate on a perennial high these days, it is imperative to rely on technology to capture the criminals. Surveillance cameras, CCTV installations and other security cameras installed in your society and the neighborhood locality can help in reducing the crime rate and solve break-ins. Recently, there were quite a few incidents where a burglary attempt was thwarted or when a long-pending crime case was solved, thanks to neighbors with cameras. Listed below are a couple of examples of that happened a few months back.

The Vancouver Police Department, bothered by the alarming increase in crime rates in its city, decided to let the citizens know about how they can help each other by reducing break-ins and thwarting burglary attempts in their neighborhood. They urged the citizens to be the eyes and ears of everyone else by installing safety cameras in their places. In a city like Vancouver, there were close to 15 residential break-ins on an average, on a single day, which urged the police to take the help of the citizens.

Thanks to these cameras, residents became more aware of what was going on around them. When they noticed people loitering aimlessly in their locality, they immediately alerted the police. The residents also started to take note of suspicious movements of people in their areas by logging on to their cameras frequently. If they found any stranger in the backyard of their neighbor’s homes, they informed the right person and also alerted the police accordingly.

Thanks to the huge success of these cameras (also known as Neighborhood Watch or other names), crime rates dropped phenomenally in the Vancouver city. The program was so successful that it was adopted by almost all the neighborhoods in Canada. Through these neighborhood cameras, people began to learn how to make their property and residences less-prone to burglary attempts.

In San Francisco, the neighborhood camera technology assumed another level completely. Here, they have created a society-based website, where the residents of that particular society can log in and have a look at what is happening in the backyard/front yard or other parts of their/their neighbors’ homes. Yes, in these cases, privacy does take a hit, but residents are willing to sacrifice it for their safety. When they spot any suspicious activity in any residence of their society, they broadcast a message on the site, so that the concerned person can view the same. The police are called for immediately, and all burglary attempts are thwarted immediately.

A two-member team was trying to break into a few cars and homes in San Francisco. The thief, who was seen wearing a wig, was caught on the cameras when he was trying to break into one of the homes. The intruder was caught and handed over to the police immediately, by the citizens, thanks to the technological sophistication of these cameras. The thief was caught sitting in the backyard of one of the homes, and she seemed to be lost or confused about something. Her movements were suspicious, and she was only lazing around the porch without going anywhere. She was waiting for the right time to break-in, probably! When the residents spotted this, they immediately broadcasted the message on the common website and got her arrested.

Not all people are immensely patriotic. Some might value the health of their family over the health of their country, and that could be considered perfectly reasonable depending on your point of view. However, if we hope to live anywhere we are often regarded as a citizen of a country. This means that we have a duty, whether we like it or not, to be a decent citizen. If we’re lucky enough to live in a democratic country, then honoring this by being an informed person can work wonders for you.

There’s no need to wrap this up in pomp and circumstance however. If you have the ability to, becoming informed can keep a wealth of benefits for your own life also. This means developing your information habits in certain ways. The following might help you sustainably keep this up. You needn’t be a master of all topics, but knowing a wide range of information can be achievable if you try.

Read Outside Your Comfort Zone

Books are a wealth of knowledge. While articles and think pieces are tremendously useful for explaining bite-size ideas, sometimes the smaller morals, perspectives and long-form ideas need to be narratively emphasized. Of course, non-fiction books also exist to give us a rational grip on our world. We rob ourselves of varied and interesting information when we neglect to take part in theses. As a challenge for yourself this month, why not head to a library and pick out a book at random? Reading something you are not prepared for or even interested in could gift you information that gives your life a little more depth. This comfort zone idea also goes for political commentary, philosophy, and separate news sources with different slants on a subject. The more you are able to digest the better.

Become Financially Literate

Money moves markets, and markets move society. In order to become a more rational person with a well-guarded homestead, having the basics of financial matters in your mind can mean a world of wealth and positivity for your home. Becoming financially literate might mean understanding your life financial plan and how to save, how to avoid falling into tragic debt, or how to invest in rising stocks in something you might not otherwise be interested in such as waste management.

Financial planning turns you from someone living paycheck to paycheck or struggling with financed bills, to someone who grows their fiscal authority and dominion over their own home. The world is expensive, and being more adept at sailing those tides of course transforms you into a person with a financial backbone.

Community

The best communities are the ones in which people care about their surroundings. We’re not suggesting that you volunteer twenty hours a week at the local soup kitchen, but making an effort to tidy your local environment, vote on key local issues and protest things you care about can tip the scales in a positive direction. To be a positive member of the community, you have to engage with it somehow. This might mean setting up a neighborhood watch, running a monthly yard sale between houses or simply introducing yourself to your neighbors. To be a thriving and informed citizen, you must understand that you rest on your community more than you might believe.

Not only will these tips help produce a more informed life, but it will make you genuinely happier and more secure in your practical knowledge. Have fun!

In an age where we are meant to be promoting peace, love and unity, crime is becoming more common. There are a number of reasons for this – we have better means of reporting it, whereas in past decades we may not have gotten through or may not have bothered for fear of it the information not being acted on. We have generally spent a lot more on what enters our home – technology has advanced massively, and so have the gadgets and gizmos that we need to purchase to keep up with it (and with this comes the size issue – stuff is generally lighter, portable and easier to uninstall … for both our benefit and the thieves’). And lastly, but most importantly – we just don’t seem to care enough about it.

Ok, so that last sentence may not really make sense in regards to the points that came beforehand. Are we clamoring after an ideal life where we think that if you only leave something on show for, say, 3 minutes, that nobody will ever think of stealing it? Is it a time-relative issue, or are we just being naïve? The reality is that we are probably putting more money into getting the new pieces of technology to keep up with trend pressure than we are about insuring them, protecting them and keeping them safe.

If somebody enters your home or car without having to break-in, this could be invalidating your insurance should you be wanting to make a claim. It seems nowadays that people are more concerned about people breaking into their phones than their homes, and whereas you can think up all of the most crazy, unique and random passwords to protect that, unfortunately they don’t work when it comes to keeping your home safe. You will never fully understand the importance of security door locks until it is too late, so stay one step ahead and invest in some good-quality (and visible! Burglars hate visible!) deterrents.

Common Sense Works

If you have something expensive, hide it away regardless of if you are in the house or not – you never know who could be entering while you are in another room; statistics show that more burglaries take place in daylight rather than at night like as shown on the movies, so get the stereotype out of your head immediately and be on your guard at all times. Get into the habit of locking doors behind you, and if it’s especially hard to get your door locked then keep in mind that it will be easy for criminals to get in – a hard-to-lock door in terms of physicality often means that the lock is not working properly. Get in with a neighbourhood watch scheme and purchase a house alarm if you don’t have one already. Mix up your daily routine (thieves love routine – it ensures they know that they’re safe and won’t be caught knowing that you’re at the supermarket from 2-3pm every Wednesday) and don’t leave anything to chance. When you are given a good chance you take it, right? Same goes for anybody else, whether their intentions are good or bad. It’s unfortunate but it’s true.

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